Mountains Like Cocoa Powder

The day stayed dim all morning. When I went out the air was just warming up. A lingering chilly breeze made me glad I had dressed in layers. 

 The clouds were an even blanket of washboard dark grey, like an Oregon winter instead of an Arizona one. No sunlight made it through to the McDowells. Instead they were uniformly dark brown, like jagged heaps of cocoa powder. 

I peaked into the free library. The city put an entire selection of new books into it a couple days ago. Gone were the Clive Cussler spy novel and the romance paperbacks that had lingered. In place were new books in both the adult and children's sections. Two novels by someone named Jodi Picoult.

Lately I have begun adding calisthenics to my daily sorties to Bell Road and around the soccer fields. I have started and used the same set of "bodyweight" exercises since 2014 in Portland. There tremendous for building underlying muscle and I still have retained some of the strength I built in various connective tissues ten years ago by doing them on and off.

On the way back towards the park I looked down at the sidewalk and notices the tiny dark spots on the pavement. Was that rain. As I walked I kept looking down, trying to notice if the number of spots was growing. After twenty steps I confirmed that they were indeed growing, and at that point I could feel the spritz on my uncovered hair in the form of little specks of wet on my scalp.. It continued as I walked through the park, and back past the free library. I stopped again, looked inside again (because why not), and then noticed the curved red metal canopy over the wooden library box was mottled with wet drops that has begun to coalesce together, and in the refraction of the water droplets on the meal I saw the scrub trees beyond. I stood next to it and let it fill my vision space, savoring the sight of the water and the optical effect it made.

An Arizona winter downpour!